Hindi
Rajshri breaks distribution practice for Jaana Pehchana release
MUMBAI: Breaking away from the current practice of releasing a film with more that 1,500 prints, Rajshri Productions has decided to release its upcoming film Jaana Pehchana with a single print in Mumbai on 16 September. It will have 29 prints distributed in other parts of the country.
Moreover, the production house is planning to release the print in the good old reel format instead of the present-day digital style. “It makes better sense to release a film this way. We believe its content is good and if we get positive feedback from the audience, we will increase the number of prints,” Rajshri‘s head of distribution and marketing P S Ramanathan said in a statement.
It may be recollected that Rajshri‘s Hum Aapke Hain Kaun had a similar distribution plan: It released in Mumbai with one print and had 29 prints sent across the other parts of the country.
“The rationale behind the limited release of that film was that most cinema halls at that time didn‘t have the stererophonic sound systems that we needed for the film. Salman Khan‘s Maine Pyaar Kiya was also released with just 18 prints in 1989 and we ended up releasing the film in more than 1,800 screens,‘” Ramanathan added.
Jaana Pehchana is a sequel to the Sachin-Ranjeeta-starrer Ankhiyon Ke Jharoke Se that released way back in 1978. The film starts off where Ankhiyon Ke Jharoke Se ended, with Ranjeeta‘s character‘s death due to cancer. The second installment has been directed by Sachin himself and tells the story of middle-aged Arun Mathur, who is still grieving for his high-school love.
Hindi
Remembering Gyan Sahay, the lens behind film, television and advertising
From a puppet rabbit selling poppadums to Hindi cinema, he framed it all.
MUMBAI: There are careers, and then there are canvases. Gyan Sahay, the veteran cinematographer, director, and producer who passed away on 10 March 2026 in Mumbai, had one of the latter. Over several decades in the Indian film and television industry, he turned lenses, lights, and the occasional puppet rabbit into something approaching art.
A graduate of the Film and Television Institute of India (FTII) in Pune, Sahay built his reputation as a director of photography across a career that stretched from the early 1970s all the way to the digital age. He was the kind of craftsman who understood that a well-composed shot is not merely a technical achievement but a quiet act of storytelling.
For most Indians of a certain age, however, Sahay will forever be the man behind the rabbit. His direction of the iconic long-running television commercial for Lijjat Papad, featuring its now-legendary puppet bunny, gave the country one of its most cheerfully persistent advertising images. It was the sort of work that sneaks into the national subconscious and takes up permanent residence.
His big-screen credits as cinematographer include Anokhi Pehchan (1972), Pagli (1974), Pas de Deux (1981), and Hum Farishte Nahin (1988). In 1999, he stepped behind a different kind of camera altogether, making his directorial debut with Sar Ankhon Par, a drama that featured Vikas Bhalla and Shruti Ulfat, with a cameo by Shah Rukh Khan for good measure.
On television, Sahay was particularly prized for his command of multi-camera production setups, a skill that made him a go-to technician for large-scale shows and reality programmes. In an industry that has never been especially patient with complexity, he was the calm hand on the rig.
In later life, Sahay turned teacher. He participated regularly in masterclasses and Digi-Talks, often hosted by organisations such as Bharatiya Chitra Sadhna, sharing hard-won wisdom on cinematography, the comedy of timing in a shot, and the sweeping changes brought by the shift from celluloid to digital. He was also said to have been involved in a project concerning a biographical film on Infosys co-founder N.R. Narayana Murthy.
Tributes from the film industry poured in following the news of his passing, with colleagues remembering him as a senior cameraman who served as a rare bridge between two entirely different eras of Indian cinema. That is, perhaps, the finest thing one can say of any craftsman: he kept up, and he brought others along with him.
